Powdered madness

I had some free time over lunch last week, so I decided to go and inform myself about the most recent developments in protein drinks. The drugstore I usually get my protein powder from has been sprouting some new shelves with "protein diet" cans in a multitude of flavors, and I wanted to know if any of these might be useful for me, too.
Which meant looking for the nutritional information.
The results left me absolutely horrified.
In ten out of ten so-called protein drinks, the main ingredient was... sugar. Up to forty per cent of the total weight of what was in those cans.
So, if I used these products, not only would I ingest about one and a half tablespoon of sugar with each protein shake, I would also pay that sugar with the same amount of money I'd pay for protein powder, which is about ten times the asking price of sugar.
Talk about maximizing one's profits.
Mind you, these were products that were expressly tagged "diet" shakes, so, recommended for people who want to lose weight. Now if I were to consume five helpings of the stuff a day, that would make 75 grams of sugar. That is decidedly more than I may eat if I want my weight to go down.
As these are marketed as protein drinks, there is a strong possibility that people who want to lower their carb intake would try them, thereby probably even raising their total amount of carbohydrates consumed.

Besides, in my experience, the chance of really losing weight on something that's more than a third of it's weight pure sugar is... zero.

I don't want to know just how many people spend half a fortune on those mock protein drinks and give up, seeing no results and blaming themselves for it.

There should be a law against selling something like that.

And until there is, we have to keep looking at ingredient lists and nutrition facts.


Julia